NIMBUS-7 Project: Earth Radiation Budget and Cloud Data from Satellite Scanner

Nimbus 7 Narrow Field of View Maximum Likelihood Cloud Estimation data provides daily and monthly means of Earth Radiation Budget parameters on two equal-area world grids. The data were reprocessed in 1990 using an MLCE algorithm from scanner measurements taken primarily between May 1979 and May 1980. The dataset also includes ocean surface wind speed, water vapor, and liquid water data from the SMMR instrument, processed by Remote Sensing Systems.

Use Cases

• Modeling regional cloud cover based on the MLCE algorithm outputs mentioned in the description
• Analyzing Earth Radiation Budget parameters on a 167km or 500km global grid
• Studying ocean near-surface wind speed, water vapor, and liquid water from microwave radiometer data
• Investigating temporal sampling variations in satellite data from the late 1970s

Strengths

• Data is presented on two commensurate equal-area world grids (167 km and 500 km resolution)
• Includes parameters derived using a Maximum Likelihood Cloud Estimation algorithm
• Contains data from a defined 13-month period (May 1979 through May 1980)

Limitations

• Row count and dataset size are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• The description notes poorer temporal sampling during the first five months of the experiment

Provenance

Source

NASA NIMBUS-7 satellite and Remote Sensing Systems

Collection Method

Derived from Nimbus-7 scanner and SMMR radiometer measurements using MLCE and other algorithms

Time Range

Primary data from May 1979 to May 1980; instrument measurements from November 1978 to June 1980

Freshness

Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified

Geography

Global, with observations within 100 km of land excluded for SMMR data